Is there a reason for different sized palettes in Publisher?

[Rocketdrive]

In Publisher, the text wrap settings open in a huge window, at least compared to other studio palettes. And then there is the baseline grid settings, which open in a smaller, yet also somehow differently looking window.

Is there a reason for those differently looking UIs? If not it would be great to make them just as any regular studio palette, and also make them dockable. Oh and make all of them horizontally stackable on Macs, please.

[Old Bruce]

Text Wrap is not a Studio Panel. Check out the View > Studio > ... for all the various Studio Panels.

[Rocketdrive]

Yep. But it should be IMO. I don't see a reason for undockable, humungous windows that could work just fine as dockable studio palettes.

[Dan C]

Thanks for your feedback!

I don't believe our devs have provided any specific reasoning for this, so I'll move this thread to the Suggestions section of the Forums, for our devs to see and consider changing this in the future

[Rocketdrive]

Thanks, @Dan C 😃

[MikeTO]

I think Rocketdrive raises a fair point.

Studios are panels, windows that float above a document and in which changes are applied immediately. Selecting another object will reflect its values in all open panels.

Rocketdrive is pointing out that some Affinity panels aren't studios which is confusing. Text Wrap, Baseline Grid, Resource Manager, and others are panels which can't be docked. There is no difference between these panels and studios, they just happen to have close/minimize controls and a redundant Close button. It's confusing that Text Wrap is not a panel and Pinning is a panel given how related these functions are. And yes, Text Wrap could have been designed in a more compact fashion for a window that can be left open permanently.

Affinity apps also have another type of window of which Picture Frame Properties is an example. This is really just a popup button but it displays an oversize and more complex window that a typical popup button. Picture Frame Properties would be much more useful as a studio or as a non-studio panel because I challenge you to use Publisher on a 13" laptop screen and not have Picture Frame Properties appear on top of the picture, making it difficult to see the effect of your changes. I prefer to work on a small screen but I'm constantly having to shift the document after clicking Picture Frame Properties. Fortunately, I can do that by dragging on the touchpad while the Properties popup is still open.

One last point on the Studio panels - there are different widths even for panels which are on the same side by default. For example, Pages, Index, and Find/Replace are all docked on the left by default in non-separated mode but Pages is much narrower than the other two. Again because I'm on a small screen, I keep the left-side panel as narrow as possible. This means my document view port narrows when I choose Find or Index. I would prefer Find and Index to be as narrow as Pages and they could be, there's no reason they have to be that wide.